The Last of Us II
by DaWolfHunter25
Summary: The deadly infection has killed three quarters of the Earth's population. The fireflies had the cure, a girl named Ellie, but Joel took that away from them. Now the human race faces extinction, or so we thought. We only believed that Ellie was the only one like her. But we were wrong. There is another. Only months later, what will happen when Joel and Ellie meet this new cure . . .
1. Chapter One

Ok guys don't hate me. I know I haven't done anything for a really, really, really, REALLY really (x400) long time with "Jinxed", but I kinda fell in love with this game and, well, this happened. I PROMISE I will continue with "Jinxed" after my exams next week (April - May 2015). But for now, enjoy! (please don't hate meeeee)

The Last of Us II

CHAPTER ONE

"Easy now, easy."

"Shh," I reply. A few moments pass. I concentrate on the animal in the distance. I can feel my heart thumping in my chest. The pulse travels through my whole body. Into my legs, my head, my hands. I take a deep breath, and count to myself. One, two, three. I squeeze the trigger and lean forward into the recoil. I see the brown animal look up in this direction just before its head snaps back, tearing flesh and shattering bones.

"Atta girl. Nice shot."

"I've shot a deer before you know."

"Yeah but none of them were that far away."

I stand up, holding the rifle around my back. I dust off the front of my shirt, since I was lying on dirt. "Come on. We've got to get our dinner for the week."

"Yeah, I'm coming." I follow Joel through the forest. The woods around me is so lush, so peaceful, so alive. "Beautiful isn't it?"

"What?"

"The world. Isn't it pretty?"

"I suppose it is."

"Was the city like this? You know, before it all went to hell."

"Yeah some places. Where I lived there were parks like this, really similar."

"Must have been amazing. Too bad most of it is just shit now."

"There's the trail," he says, pointing at the puddle of blood in the grass. "Shouldn't be too far from here now."

We soon arrive to the body of the deer. Its head lay on the ground with blood pouring out of the hole between its eyes. Its lifeless body lies in the middle of a clearing in a pool of blood.

"Thing bled out over here? That was fast," Joel says as he approaches the body.

Wait, how did it die here? A deer this size can definitely run for way longer than this. In the distance I hear a sound; an all too familiar sound.

"Joel!" I yell as I remove my rifle. I aim it at the head of the clicker running at him and fire. Blood and parts of its flesh falls everywhere, including on the deer.

"Son of a. . . how the hell are there infected over here? These parts have been uninhabited for years!"

"Look at his shirt," I say as I make my way over to Joel. "Poor bastard was a camper out here."

"That means that there'll be more of em."

I look at the deer on the ground. "You can't eat this. Look, it's got infected blood all over it."

"It's getting dark, we need to head back now."

"Wait what about you? What'll you eat?"

"Nothing. I'll see what I can find at the house," he says while pulling the deer's antlers. "Help me with this."

"Wait no Joel. There isn't anything at the house. We cleared it out a few days ago."

"Well I'll think of something."

"There isn't anything else, we have to find another deer or a rabbit or. . ."

"Ellie!" Joel pulls me down and fires four shots behind me, each one with a screech of pain after it.

"What the fuck?!"

"Now no one will eat anything."

"What do you mean?" I turn around to see a massive swarm of runners and clickers charging our way. "Oh shit."

"Ellie come on!"

I stay close to Joel as we sprint in the other direction. An army of clicking and screaming and yelling follows us closely.

"Joel where are we going?"

"Just keep running!"

I listen to Joel and continue to sprint behind him. I hear footsteps behind mine, but I dare not turn around to lose speed. Then, something grabs me by the shoulders. The infected runner yells and shouts as it pins me to the ground. It tries to bite me, but I thrust my knife into its right eye. That doesn't stop it though.

"Ow, Joel! Get off me you fucking. . ." Joel fires three shots into its head. Blood splatters everywhere, and I am covered in it. "Shit, that's disgusting," I say.

"Ellie come on, they're getting closer." I listen and hear the hoard not too far away. "In here," Joel says as he opens the door to an abandoned home. He shuts the door and pushes a bookshelf in front of it to barricade us in. I take a moment to catch my breath. "Okay, we should be good now. I don't hear them anymore so we must have. . ."

"Don't fucking move." I swing around to find an orange haired girl pointing a shotgun at me. I aim my weapon at her, which is only a handgun, compared to hers. "Drop the gun."

"You first."

She cocks her shotgun and points it straight at my face. "Ellie," Joel says.

"Shut up." She looks at Joel's backpack. "What's in the bag?"

"None of you goddamn business," I snap at her.

"Ellie."

"Take em off, both of you, and slide them over here," she steps back a foot or two.

"Yeah? Fuck you!"

"Ellie, please," Joel says to me.

The girl steps closer to me. Joel leans forward, causing her to stop. "Listen you little shit, if you open your mouth one more time I'm going to put five buck shots in it, you hear me?"

"You can go and fu. . ." Before I can finish my sentence, we hear clicking coming from outside.

"You hear that?" Joel says, he peeks through the window, "Damn clickers. Three of em." He looks at the girl. "Okay, if you could just. . ." She points the shotgun at Joel, causing him to raise his hands. "Look, there are three of those things out there. Now you could hold us up in here and draw some attention, or you could give us our bags and we get the hell out of here." The girl looks at us nervously. She finally lowers her gun and turns to run outside. "Come on Ellie."

"We could have taken her."

"Yeah, not unless one of us took a bullet."

We exit through the back of the house and see the girl crouched behind an old, rusted car.

"What are you still doing here?" Joel asks.

"Hey, get down!" she whispers. She points at the yard next to this one. Clickers walk aimlessly around another rusted truck. "Clickers, two of em. Ellie. . ."

"On it,," I say as I take my gun from the holster. I begin to move to closer cover, careful not to make a sound.

"What the hell are you. . ."

"Calm down," Joel says to her, "We've done this before."

I duck down behind a large flower pot. One of the clickers is right in front of me, making its disgusting clicking noises. It's a woman, older than that girl, but far younger than Joel. Even though she is dead, the thing controlling her, that fungus is still alive, but not for long.

I wait for Joel to get in position next to the other clicker, that way we get both of them at the same time. Once in position, I take out my knife._ I just washed this thing too_, I think to myself. Joel silently counts with his fingers to me, Three, Two, One. On one I jump up on the clicker and shove my knife in its throat. The fungus growing on its face feels disgusting, like a soft sponge covered in blood and hairs. The screeches they make slowly fade as they die on the ground.

I look at the blood on my hands, "Fuck that's gross."

"It's clear, you can come out. . ." We both look at where she was, but see nothing. Then, we hear a single, blood curdling, scream.

I follow Joel as we run toward where we heard it. The silence makes our footsteps louder, and we hear shouting coming from behind a house. We turn a corner to see her on the ground fighting a runner off.

"Help! Help me!"

"Joel!" He fires three shots at the infected, killing him and splattering blood all over the girl. She frantically moves away from the body, breathing heavily.

"Are you alright?" Joel asks her. She picks up her shotgun and slowly stands up, shaking violently. She looks at Joel, then at me, her green eyes staring straight through me. I've seen that look before.

"Oh my God. She's infected." She looks at her arm. Her left arm has a bite mark. Blood pores out through it down to her fingers, dripping onto the blood covered ground. She looks back at me with her green, hopeless eyes. Her shaking hands grab her shotgun, bringing it up to her chin. Tears run down her cheek before. . .

"No!" Joel screams as the blood sprays everywhere, and her body falls to the ground.

"Oh my God!" The body falls down to my feet. Her hair is spread around her face, lying in a puddle of blood. "We could have. . . she could have. . ." I cover my mouth with my hands. I ignore the blood on my hands putting more blood on my face. My heart struggles to slow to a normal pace.

"Come on Ellie. Let's go."

To Be Continued. . .


	2. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

I am woken by the pain of hunger in my stomach. I open my eyes and see a bird on the window sill. I watch as it moves its head in the frame-like way that it does. It's head cocks sideways as it looks at me, then at the metal sill. It's small, orange beak moves with lightning speed to catch, kill and eat a helpless caterpillar, reminding me of the life I live. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this, I didn't choose this life; this life chose me. And now in order to survive, we must fight.

I get up from the mattress I slept on. The springs creak as I sit up on them, shifting my position to avoid the ones that stick up through the mattress. My stomach growls violently as I stand. I kick a loose tile on the floor as I make my way to the door, or at least what's left of it. The abandoned house Joel and I are in is one of many in the neighborhood. I enter the living room to find Joel asleep on the couch. The area we are in is relatively remote from any infected activity, allowing us both to sleep without taking watch shifts.

He looks strangely relaxed there on the couch, as if not affected with the fact that we both have been starving for the past week. I almost don't want to disturb his slumber, however my stomach says otherwise.

"Joel, Joel wake up," I say as I shake him.

He mumbles a little and twists and turns on the couch before his eyes open. "Hey kiddo, mornin," he says as he sits up. I sit down next to him and let my head fall on his shoulder.

"Do we have anything left to eat? I'm fucking starving," I say rubbing my stomach.

"No, we ran out a few days ago." He says, both of us staring at the ceiling. It stays quiet for a few seconds. The peaceful silence is broken by the sound of our stomachs growling simultaneously. I stand up and head into my room to get my backpack, and walk to the front door. I start to unlock the lock on the door. "Where are you going?"

"Well we have to get food somehow." The door unlocks and I open it. I stand for seconds more and look at Joel. "Are you coming, or what?"

• • • • • • • • •

"Hey Joel, what's this word?"

"Lemme see," he reaches back and takes the magazine, his eyebrow raises when he sees the page, then his attention returns to the road, "Where'd you get this from?"

I laugh at his reaction, "I found it in my room."

"You know you're too young to be seeing this kind of stuff."

"Just tell me what the word is will you."

The truck becomes silent for a moment, "I don't know what it is."

"What do you mean? You're like a hundred fucking years old," I say as a snatch the magazine from his hand. The car swerves a little before he can regain control.

"Sit back, and put on your goddamn seat belt," he yells at me.

I do as he says, even though the seat belts were torn apart before we got the truck.

We soon arrive to the fifteen foot tall front walls of the hydroelectric dam reserve entrance, with barbed-wire extending an extra four feet up. Armed men approach the window. Joel rolls down the window, and the man nods to let us through. They must know our faces by now. The gates open with loud creaking noises, revealing the road on the inside. Three guard towers look down at us through sniper rifles without the safety on. Men ride on horses around the truck, the clacking of the horse shoes on the road echoing in the sky, the horse's noises fill my ears and their smell fills my nose. As we exit the truck, the door atop the stairs open.

"Tommy," Joel says.

"Joel, what are you doing here?" He puts the black wrench he was carrying in the pocket of his stained overalls with his equally dirty hands and extends one to Joel. Tommy's wife, Maria, doesn't look too happy to see us. She looks at Joel like he offended her. The scowl on her face changes when our eyes meet.

"Ellie, why don't you go with Maria inside, help her with some work or something," Joel says while looking at Maria. She returns a not so friendly look.

"Yeah, I'm sure there's something I need help with," Maria says to me with a smile.

"Joel," I give him a look. I don't like it when he separates us like that. It makes me feel uncomfortable.

"Ellie just," he exhales a long, big breath, "Just do it."

"C'mon," Maria says to me.

Reluctantly, I follow Maria through a maze of doors. The sound of generators whirring and machinery humming vibrates inside of my body. Maria opens the door to the power room, and the wave of heat that hits my face explains why she is only in a tank top. It is so hot that I immediately begin to sweat in my clothes. I remove my green jacket, and then the red hoodie below it, leaving only my white undershirt on.

We walk all the way around the four enormous, airplane-sized generators to the other side of the room. Men and women in hard hats and gloves stand next to machines with clipboards and a pen, each one sweating like a dog in their boots. The room is tinted a blazing red-orange, complimenting the heat.

We stop next to one of the huge generator's controls. Maria opens it up and starts messing with some wires.

"Ellie, was it?" she says to me, "Do me a favor and pass me that wrench over there," she has to yell at me over the sounds of machinery. She nods to a wrench the size of my arm on the floor. I pick it up, barely, and hand it to her. She holds it in one hand like its nothing and starts on a few nuts on the side of the generator.

I lean back on the rails warmed by the heat created by the generators. "So, what's the deal with you and Joel," I yell to her, trying to speak nonchalantly.

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, I'm not blind, I saw you giving him that nasty look back there."

She drops the wrench and looks at me, her expression turned serious, sending a shiver down my neck.

"Why are you here?" she asks me.

I take a second to contemplate whether or not I should tell her the truth. "We ran out of food a few days ago, so we came here for some help."

"Look around, what do you see? Men and women who work hard everyday to look protect their families from those things out there."

"What about Joel? He's your fucking brother, doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"Yes, yes it does, but the families here, the people here depend on me and Tommy. I'm sorry Ellie but we just can't keep doing this." She picks up her wrench and continues to work on the generator.

• • • • • • • • •

Slowly, I open my eyes. I am laying on my back. There is a blinding white light, and I am surrounded by it. Above me, the ceiling is white as snow. Soon, I hear voices, slowly drifting into my ears. People surround me, they wear white masks and white clothes; doctors. They start to come closer, each with their own medical instrument. One with a scalpel leans over my body. I try to move but my hands and feet are bound to whatever I am on. It is hard and cold and sends a shiver down my spine. Suddenly, a door bursts open, and the doctors fall with blood shooting in the air, staining the ceiling and the floor red. It's Joel. I now begin to drift unconscious. Joel grabs me by the shoulders and yells at me, his eyes filled with desperation and longing,"Ellie! Ellie!"

"Ellie! Come on girl, wake up! We've got to get out of here."

I open my eyes. It takes a second for them to adjust to the darkness around me. I see Joel standing over me, gun in hand.

"Joel? What's happening," I ask him as I stand up, holding my head.

"I'll explain later, but right now we have to get the hell out of here." He is constantly looking up and around, as if watching his own back. I obey him and get my backpack and follow him outside, then I see why we must leave. The entire building is on fire. People are running in and out and screaming, and they are being chased by infected. There are as many of them as the people that lived there.

"Joel, how the hell did this happen?" I ask him as I take out my handgun.

"I don't know."

"Where's Tommy, and Maria?"

"I don't know."

"Where are we going? How what's going to . . ."

He turns around and looks me in the eye. "I don't know where anyone is, for all we know they could be dead! Now you're going to shut your mouth and keep moving!" His stare lingers on me seconds more before he turns around and we continue through the woods.

**So sorry for the long wait and for such a short chapter guys, I had exams, and my friend and I are doing something for you all. Check out his profile at _GarnetGalaxies_. Till next time...**


	3. Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

She's not here yet. She said she'd be back in a few hours, one night tops. She said it, but she isn't here yet, and it's been twenty-seven hours, and thirteen minutes. I had to watch both of our night shifts last night in the bitter cold, so I didn't get any sleep. My eyes feel like they're going to fall right off of my face. The more I fight the sleep, the harder is comes. My butt is numb because I was sitting in this cold spot for over eleven hours. I take another bite of the granola bar in my left hand, resting the knife in my right hand down so that I can peel the wrapper down more. I look down once more at the deserted parking lot of the abandoned supermarket we live in. No movement, no sounds, nothing, only the howling of the wind and the rusted skeletons of cars covered in a sheet of snow.

_Where the hell is she? _I think to myself. _She's never been gone this long before. _She told me what to do if this ever happened... No, I'll wait a few more days. She has to turn up by then. I just know it.

Footsteps echo from back entrance of the store. She's back. I make my way to the back. My eyes start to tear up, making my vision slightly blurry. She doesn't call out my name as usual, and I don't hear the door close, nor did I hear it open. Her footsteps are loud and deep, from a large foot. Lucy's feet are smaller than mine, so there's no way she could make such a thud. I stop at a corner with my back to the wall. I slowly turn my head and peek around the wall, moving so slow that I don't even notice my movement.

I freeze in place, daring not to move an inch, not to breathe, not to blink. It's breath smells of blood. _Human blood. _The scent fills this air all too often.I am not inches, but millimeters away from the face of one of _them_. My eyes open wide enough that I see it's disgusting, deformed face. I let out a breath so faint I question whether or not I actually did it and fully expect it to lunge out and tear at my face with its teeth. It starts to make the sound they are so infamous for. I am so close I can see inside of the mouth, down the throat. It's body has deformed out of shape. The organ in the back of its throat moves forward and backward to make the clicking sound, sloshing around saliva and blood as it does so. It stops after only two clicks and fixes it's head, as if it had eyes that were staring directly at my face now.

My heart goes cold, sending blood curdling shivers up my spine that resonates through my entire body. It knows I'm here. It's mouth contorts in a scowl and it lets out a long, bloody hiss as it slowly moves it's head back to strike. I can't move. I try to move my body, but I am paralyzed by fear. I have never seen an infected up close before. I'm terrified. It's about to bite my face off, and I am standing here. _Come on, move! Move damn it! Fucking move!_

Moments before it touches me, I move my face out of the way, falling to the ground with a loud thud. It's head twitches to my direction with dead on accuracy and it bellows out a loud screech. I frantically move back behind a cashier counter. I can only barely hear the clicking over my fast breathing. I can feel my pulse intensely through my head and heart. It continues to click and screech randomly and I hear it's footsteps walking around the room. It's looking for me. I try to fight back the tears, not from fear of the mindless zombie, but from not knowing what to do. If Lucy were here she would tell me what to do, she'd know what do to do. She wouldn't panic like this, barely able to breathe because of how scared she is. No, Lucy was scared, I know she was. We both were. She just knew what to do in spit of the fear.

I peek my head over the counter. It's still there. It looks down and screeches at its feet as it steps on a granola bar wrapper. Those things, they respond to sounds. They don't have any eyes because they act like bats, using sound to find their prey, that's what they told us at school. That's why they click so frequently. I look left of the infected and see dad's handgun next to my backpack. _It has everything you need in case you get lost or if you can't find me_, that's what Lucy said. I still have my knife in my right hand. If I stay here, I'll die. If I take it head on, I'll die. What the hell am I supposed to do? I remember back to what dad said to me and Lucy, back to when he and mom were still alive. _Stick together, like family, and fight to survive_.

I watch it move, try to learn its patterns. It clicks, then walks, then clicks some more. I'll have to use the time when it is clicking to move. It's the only chance I have to get out of here alive. One deep breath, _three, two one_. I listen to its footsteps. _Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. _It stopped. I have to move now. I get up, still with my back arched, and take slow, quiet steps, stepping on the tips of my toes. It stops clicking and begins to walk again. I drop to a crouched position and wait again. _Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud_. It stopped again. I get up again and move, faster this time. I am only a few feet away from the counter when it lets out s loud screech. My heart stops beating and I feel my face fill with blood. I hear no footsteps though. I look at it and see that it has stepped on another wrapper. I let out a low sigh of relief. Big mistake.

It's head cocks in my direction with better accuracy than last time. It's head moves like a bird in my direction. I stop breathing. It knows where I am. Stealth is out of the question now. It starts to make its way toward me, taking a slow step first, as if confirming my location, then it screeches again and moves far faster than ever before, moving its arms about like it's in pain whenever it moves. It's screeching is louder this time, more aggressive. I don't have any time left. I get the gun and aim it at its head, and pull the trigger. Nothing happens. The magazine is empty. I see the boxes of ammunition at the windows where I was watching the parking lot. I have no time to get there, I have to act fast. It is mere feet away now and closing.

It lets out a final screech before I use my knife and thrust it in the neck. Blood squirts everywhere. It's hands grab my arm and try to pull the knife out. It's head moves down, as if tying to bite my hand. With a loud yell, I use the adrenaline to push the knife further into its throat, all the way through its neck. The creature falls to the ground and screeches repeatedly. I sit on it and stab at its chest, over and over and over and over. Tears run down my cheeks along with the blood of the clicker.

It's clicking and screeching stopped long before I stopped stabbing it in its heart. My arms are tired and I am out of breath, whether from crying, or killing it. I am covered in its blood. It lies, lifeless under me, though I feel like it is mocking me in saying, _It is only the beginning_. I hear a loud screech from outside. There's more, and they're coming. I use the shirt of the clicker to wipe my knife clean and put it in my bag. I take all of the boxes of ammunition we have and a handful of food and water. I load the handgun and cock it. The metal is cold to the touch, and it feels heavier than usual. I suppose that's because I've never had to load it with live ammunition before now. Dad taught me as a kid how to use this with rubber bullets on targets in the military base. He's gone now. I have his handgun as a reminder of those memories with him. I had Lucy as a reminder of mom. Now they're all gone. It's just me, alone. But I can't give in. I still have to fight to survive. I put the gun in the back of my pants and my knife in my pocket.

_If something ever happens to me, don't panic. Always find shelter first, then food and water. Then you have to survive, just like what dad said_. That's what Lucy told me. I exit the supermarket, which is something I rarely do, only when I go out with Lucy to find food, but I can't stay here. It's cold this morning. I look at my watch. 9:27 am. _Find shelter... _I pan around to find something that isn't about to collapse in the hour, and that also isn't too close to here. The other clickers are on their way. I see a white top of a building in the distance. It is far, but it looks like a good place to spend tonight. I start to make my way across the city with Lucy's words echoing in my mind. _Fight to survive_. And I will.


	4. Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

We have been walking for hours. The only sounds heard are the howling winter air washing around the frost covered trees, Joel and I breathing out warm air and the snow crunching beneath our feet. The Converse I am wearing were not made for taking long walks in the snow. My socks are soaked, whether from sweat or the melted ice, and the bottom of my feet are numb from walking on the ice cold snow below the thin shoe bottoms for so long. Joel and I haven't said a word to each other since we left Tommy's shelter. I seldom catch his eye looking back at me, just before he turns around and mumbles something to himself. It hasn't bothered me before, but he's been doing it constantly since we left, so now it is becoming annoying.

We hike atop a small, snow covered hill. A cloud moves away from the sun, allowing it to shine just bright enough to make me squint. Over the hill is a city, or at least what's left of it. The empty shells of skyscrapers lean on each other like dormant giants. The city seems to go on forever, disappearing in the sunlight of the horizon. The tops of houses and buildings reflect the sunlight like glass into my eyes. The plant overgrown buildings shelter only the rats and debris of the war between man and pestilence. We stop on the summit of the hill and look on the view.

I decide to break the increasing silence "Where are we going?"

"I know someone who lives nearby here. We're going to their place," he replies.

"How do you know this guy will help us?"

"We were close as kids. We kept in touch, up until the epidemic. Haven't heard from him since."

"Wow, he must be a fossil too then," I say with a smirk.

He looks back at me and gives me a look. "Hey I'm not that... look let's keep moving. The place is still quite a ways from here," Joel replies, slightly irritated.

"How do you know he's not, you know..."

"I don't," Joel replies blandly.

"So we might be looking for a ghost in a city?" I ask him. He doesn't reply.

I roll up my jacket sleeve to look at my digital watch, 9:27 AM. We've been traversing a highway with hundreds of rusted cars for about an hour, when I hear something. I think Joel hears it too. Silence. Since we've entered the urban area of the city we haven't heard a sound, other than the wind and ourselves. Nothing. Not even any animals. We're in a city; a highly populated area. This place is supposed to be crawling with infected. If not many, we should have at least seen one, but we haven't seen any.

"It's not too far now—" His sentence is interrupted by the loud popping of a gunshot. It sounded close. Real close. "Get down," he whispers to me. We both crouch down simultaneously and take cover by a car. The rusted "H" symbol hangs off of the front of the vehicle. It must have stood for Hell. Joel peeks through the car window to try and get a better view.

"See anything?" I ask him softly.

He looks for a second more, then turns to me. "There's two of 'em up ahead, couldn't see which one had the gun."

I peek around the side of the car to take a look. Two men stand in front a large, snow covered building. "I see them. The one with the black coat, he's got one, and so does his friend over there." I look at Joel with a smile, "You're getting old."

He sort of half-looks at me, "Look, can we focus here?"

"Right, right." I look onward to try and figure out a strategy. "Can we go around them?"

"No. Look, the road's blocked off on both sides."

"So that means—"

"We have to go through 'em," Joel says as he checks his magazine. "Mine is half full. How's yours lookin'?"

I take my pistol and unlock the magazine, "I'm full."

He peeks over once more. "Alright. Remember, stay close, and—"

"And keep my head down, I know."

We silently move from car to car, careful not to make a sound. We don't know how many of them are in there. We get about five yards away from the both of them. From the looks of it they don't know where we are. We're too close to them to communicate with our voices without them hearing us, so Joel uses signals. He turns to me, points to his eyes with his index and middle fingers, then points to the man wearing the black coat, signaling that he is my target. I get into position as he counts down, _three, two one_. He and I simultaneously pull our triggers making one loud pop. The two men fall down with one bullet to the chest.

Had these two been infected, Joel would have praised me for killing them, but these were normal men. _We do what we need to survive, _Joel said that to me once.

"Check that one for anything we can use," Joel says to me as he checks the other body.

I step over his corpse, barely missing the puddle of blood staining the snow on the ground, and search his coat. I try not to look at their faces whenever I search them. It helps. I find some bullets for my pistol and a half eaten granola bar. _Gross_.

"You done over there?" Joel asks me. He stands to the side of the front door entrance.

"Yeah." I stand to the other side.

"Ready? On three, one, two three," he opens the door softly and we enter quietly. He looks around as I close the door behind us. "Everything's clear over here."

I turn around to find that we are inside of a museum. It is just dark enough so that I can see the enormous dinosaur skull staring at us from ahead over a balcony.

"Whoa, cool!" I run to the railing to get a better look. I dust off the old, dirty label. _Tyrannosaurus Rex, The Tyrant Lizard King, Carnivorous, Cretaceous Era_. "Tyrannosaurus Rex, The Tyrant Lizard King, Carnivorous, Cretak... cree-tak... Joel what's this word?"

He laughs at me, "Uh Ellie I think you mean 'cretaceous'."

"What the hell's a cri-tay-shish?"

"The cretaceous is the time period those things lived in. Some billions of years ago."

I reach out to touch the huge skull. The surface of it feels like it's covered in chalk shavings and dust. If I were to curl into a little ball, I could fit inside of one of the eyes sockets. "So fucking cool. That means this thing's almost as old as you then, huh?" I say with a laugh.

"Ellie, can you please—" We hear voices, "Get down," Joel grabs my hand to follow him. The room is dark, illuminated by the faint, white sunlight from the few broken windows.

"Are you sure you heard gunshots?" a voice asks.

"Yeah. Trevor's probably just fucking around again. Man I hate that guy."

The footsteps get closer. Their steps up the curved stairwell echo through the silence. I can only barely see Joel's face, his finger to his lip telling me not to make a sound. Their steps get closer and closer, until they are right next to us. They pass the small room we are in, not looking in our direction at all. The door creaks open and lets in the cold air as they exit the building.

The front door entrance opens, "Holy shit, Trevor!" While they gawk at their dead allies, Joel runs to the door and shuts it close. One of them gets out half of a curse before the door mutes their words.

"Help me with this," Joel says to me. I help him tilt a bookcase over onto the door, blocking them in, but also blocking our only exit.

"There's bound to be more of them," I tell him as I take out my pistol.

"I know," Joel replies, "Just follow me." We jog down the stairs, giving me a full top-to-bottom view of the enormous dinosaur skeleton. Its tail alone must be the length of two cars.

We walk down a dark hall taking silent steps. Joel has his big shotgun in hand and I follow behind with my pistol. We keep our flashlights off as to not alarm anyone nearby of our presence. _Consider your resources when taking on enemies,_ Joel always says to me. Stealth isn't the easiest, but it saves ammunition.

We arrive to a double door entrance to an enormous room. Looking down at us from atop the door frame are the words _Nat-ral H-sto-y_, the missing letters in pieces at our feet.

"Natural History. Are there more like the T-Rex in there then?" I ask Joel.

"Probably, if it's all still in one piece that is."

Cautiously, we open the door to enter the room filled with life-like, scale models of cave men in large glass containers, and huge pterodactyls hanging from the ceiling. The skull of a saber-toothed tiger stares back at me fiercely from behind glass, boasting its fangs. In the center of the room is a model of a wooly mammoth, taking up most of the room space. It's life-like fur has little bits of snow on it, turning it white rather than dark brown.

"... do you mean locked outside?" We both get down behind the mammoth. Some men walk out of a room on the other side, holding an object in their hands.

"Look at that," I whisper to Joel.

He peeks around the corner of the mammoth base for a second, "How the hell do they have radio communication in here?"

"Radio? Wouldn't you need a signal for that?"

"Yeah, if it's long range. Those ones must be short range, run on batteries or somethin'."

"Wow. Hey, we could use those."

Joel turns to me, "You know that's not a bad idea."

One of the men knock their radio with his hand, "Hello? Come in. What did you say, over."

"Holy sh-hurry up and-fuckin clickers-it's too la-." The static flooded channel goes dead.

"You hear that? He said clickers," the other says.

"Think we should go help him?"

"Yeah, fuck that. I'm getting the hell out of h—" His sentence is interrupted by the loud, monstrous bellowing of a clicker, followed by a loud yell, then his blood filled gargling.

"Holy shi—" Another clicker bites down on the other one. The sound of the radio hitting the ground echoes through the now silent room. Constant clicking and heavy footsteps on the broken-tiled floor now makes the scenario all the more eerie.

The clickers are in the back of the room, on the far side of the mammoth, making it safe for us to quietly whisper to each other, "What now Joel? That was our only exit, and there's got to be more of them out there."

"Workin' on it." He scans the room for anything we can work with, "There, that door," he points to a door on the left side of the mammoth, our right.

"What's inside?"

"Guess that's what we're gonna find out."

We silently and slowly walk crouched to the door, which is especially hard considering that there are broken tiles everywhere.

We are mere feet away from the door when I remind Joel, "Joel, the radios."

"Forget em', they're not worth the risk."

"Yes they are, they could really help us out. I'll just go back and get—"

"No," he grabs my arm, "I'll get them. You stay here."

"Are you sure? I can—"

"No, I got it just, stay here."

"Okay." I watch as he doubles back around the mammoth. I can't see him once he's on the other side due to the immense size of the mammoth in the way, but I can see the clickers behind it, to my right. I hear his steps and him picking up both of the radios, and so do the clickers. First one twitches it's disgusting head in Joel's direction, then so does the other. They both start to make their way towards Joel. The first one disappears behind the mammoth, then the other. A few, dreadful seconds of silence pass before I see Joel coming crouched from around the statue base. He is followed closely by the clickers, and by the looks of things he doesn't know it.

Looking right at him, I point and gesture to them, trying not to make a sound. In the dark room, I see him squinting his eyes at me, trying to tell what I'm doing. The clickers are getting closer. There's no time for warnings. I take out my pistol and fire three shots at the one closest to Joel.

"Ellie!" he yells as he gets up and runs from the other one, "Get inside!"

More and more infected fill the room from the entrance and from where the first two came out from. I fire two more bullets at another before I turn around and enter the room. Joel stands against the door while the infected scream and screech on the other side trying to get in.

Inside, there is something in the ground. "Uh, Joel?"

"I dropped one of the radios on the way here."

"I think found something." I kneel down beside it.

"Not right now Ellie!"

His skin is pale and covered in cuts and bruises. He can't be older than sixteen judging by his height. I check his pulse, "He's still alive." I remove my hand from his neck and turn around to see Joel staring at the body, just before he is knocked back by the door again. "Help me pick him up," I say as I put his arm around my shoulders.

"No, absolutely not, we are _not_ gonna take his boy with us!" He says as he continues to battle the door.

"What?! We can't just leave him here to die, those things will rip him to pieces!"

"That's not our problem!" he is knocked back by the door again, "I can't hold this for much longer. Look, there's an exit," he gestures with his head to a big hole in the wall down a hall. "Now I'm gonna let go, and when I do we're gonna move. On three." I lift him as I try to stand to my feet, "One!" I stand with his body, and look at Joel. He is not happy. "Ellie! Two!"

"I'm gonna need your help!" I start to move toward the exit.

"Three!" Joel moves from the door and picks the boy up and puts him over his back in one swift motion. We only have a second to breathe before a horde of infected burst through the door and begin to chase us. I stumble for a second before regaining my balance and run along side Joel.

As we near the hole and the brightness contrast between outside and inside evens out, I see a hole directly out the hole in the wall.

"We gotta jump in!" Joel yells to me over the swarm of runners and clickers.

"We don't know what's down there!"

"We ain't got a choice!"

Joel, ahead of me, slides down into the dark hole, disappearing seconds after entering. I follow him, at first I can still hear the infected above us, then they fade away, and so does the sight of my fingers, I can't see an inch ahead of me. I fumble for my flashlight, but it slips out of my hand as we both grunt and hit a slanted floor. Now we slide at an incredible speed into the nothing.

"Ellie?!" I can't see him, I only hear his voice a few feet ahead of me.

"Yeah!"

"Hang on!"

We slide for a few seconds, going so fast the wind was blowing in my face—underground, until I hear a splash. Water. I can't swim.

"Joe—" I am submerged in water for a few terrifying seconds before surfacing again. There is a light at the end of this tunnel we're in, allowing me to see Joel ahead of me kneeling on a walkway at the side.

"Ellie!" He extends his arm to and grabs mine. I hold on to it for dear life as he pulls me up.

Once steady and on land, I kneel down by the edge and violently vomit out everything in my stomach. "What the fuck is that?!" I ask between coughs and gagging. I look up and see a sign on the wall opposite us saying 'DO NOT ENTER SEWER SYSTEM WITHOUT PROPER PROTECTION'. "I just fucking tasted shit!" I cough up more puke, "That's fucking disgusting!"

"You okay?" Joel asks me while panting.

I regain my composure enough for me to speak, "Yeah, I think so." I bend over, my hands on my knees, out of breath. The same as Joel. We both look at the boy who lay on the cement walkway, breathing and coughing. His pale is skin now stained by the dirty water. His eye twitches and he coughs up more water as he moans and rolls over on his stomach. He's waking up.


	5. Chapter Five

My whole body is numb. I can't feel anything from my head to toe until I semi-open my eyes and see that I am on the ground. The gray cement is crawling with ants and bugs and the air smells of the bathrooms at the military camp I used to be in.

I try to push myself up, but my arms are no where near close to being able to support my body, causing me to fall on my knee sending a spike of pain through it. I felt that. Not even able to groan in pain, I lie there, hoping that this is some kind of sick dream that I'm in. But it isn't.

I remember the supermarket. I remember Lucy leaving, and not coming back. And the clicker. I remember entering an old museum, and then nothing. My head hurts more just thinking about it. I can't just stay here and die though, despite how badly my body wants to. I need to get up. I try once more to stand, pushing myself up with my hands underneath my chest. It hurts, it hurts like hell, but I do it anyway.

Until now I wasn't able to hear anything but muffled sounds of water, now I hear voices. I stumble down onto the same knee again. The pain is excruciating. Then I feel a hand around my back. I look forward and see a hazy figure; a person. The voices aren't clear, but I hear another. Another figure stands next to the first, older and taller; a man.

My vision clears enough for me to see the white hairs in his beard, and the first person's face. She's a girl, younger than me. I use her to steady myself up. Once upright, the muffled voices start to clear up.

"...ello...hello?"

"What...what..." I can't even form a full sentence.

"Sit here. You really took a beating, huh?" I hold my head with my hand as I sit on a bench nearby.

"We have to move," his voice sounds worn out, "Can he walk?" He speaks aggressively, about me specifically.

She looks at me, "Well can you?" Her big, green eyes remind of too much of Lucy's.

"Ellie," he urges her.

"Yeah, I can walk," I say as I stand, trying to ignore the intense headache that follows, and failing horribly.

I follow behind the girl and the man through the destroyed streets of the city. Ellie is the girl, and the old man is Joel, though Ellie had to tell me his name since He was so reluctant. Before long, it begins to get dark. The temperature drops dramatically, so we find an abandoned office building to spend the night in. Snow begins to fall again just as we enter.

The cube-shaped room is dark and musty, causing all of us to sneeze almost immediately after entering. The floor is a mess with papers and stationery scattered everywhere. The desks that aren't destroyed in pieces are piled with papers and binders, some with broken computers on them as well.

On one desk there is a framed photograph of a man, probably an employee, and his daughter. She can't be older than six and yet has a smile as wide as her father's. Joel's stare lingers on it far longer than mine. Ellie looks at him as though she wants to say something, but stays quiet. He walks past it, knocking the frame over with the butt of his gun as he does so. Maybe it was intentional.

"I'm going to check over here," he says without looking back at us.

What am I doing here? I don't know these people. Hell, they can be one of those scavengers for all I know, or infected. I can't stay here. They don't seem to be any threat right now, at least not the girl, Ellie. Joel, however, is not another worry I want to deal with for long. I look out the window and can see the museum top from here. If I can make it to the museum, I'll be able to go back home, to the supermarket. I can't have them following me though, I'll have to leave when they're asleep tonight.

I grab a chair and sit beside a window that isn't broken. Ellie joins me, her face illuminated by the white light of the moon and the falling snow.

"Hey." She sits with the chair backwards, the back of it between her legs. I stare into the night. "Not a talker?" I stay quiet. "Mkay. Well, we told you our names, what's yours?" I remain silent. She looks at me for a second more, waiting for an answer, but doesn't get one. "Right, I guess I'll just—" She starts to get up.

"Ethan. My name's Ethan." Joel lays back on a couch on the other side of the room, resting his backpack next to it.

"Okay, Ethan, where're you from?"

"I was born in Toronto. We... I moved to Casper a few years ago."

"Casper, that's in Wyoming, isn't it?"

"East, yeah."

"Wow. What happened? I mean, you weren't out there all alone, were you?"

"I was at a military base, same as everyone else, and then..." It hurts just thinking about it, "I wasn't alone. I had someone. I..." I don't want to cry in front of these people, I fight back the tears.

"I get it. I lost someone close too. In Boston, where I'm from, I had a friend. It's hard, I know, but..."

I look her dead in the eye, "No, you don't," overflowing with emotion, I get up and move to sit in a corner.

It's been two days, and I haven't seen Lucy. If she were here, anywhere, she would've radioed me. I take the small device out of my backpack and tune it to our channel. Static. Nothing but static. I want to believe she's out there, somewhere, but... no. She is out there. She has to be.

"Hey," Joel says to me, getting up, "What's that?"

"This?" I say, holding up the radio.

"Yes that. Where'd you get that radio?" Ellie comes over here as well.

"None of your—"

He grabs my backpack and empties it out on the floor. Bunches of fruit and granola bars fall down to the floor with plastic crackling and the thud of the fruit. "Where the hell did you get all this food?"

I stare at him, trying to think of something to say. That supermarket is our home. It's where we get most, if not all of our food. I can't tell them about it. But then something hit me. What if...

"W— I lived in an abandoned supermarket downtown. When I found it there were tons crates of food stored in a back room."

"No, that's impossible. All the stores roun' here been empty for years."

"It's in a remote part of town. You can miss it easily of you don't know where it is."

"Joel," Ellie says, "He has food."

Joel turns around and begins to pace the floor with his hands on his hips, as if contemplating whether or not I'm telling he truth. "Alright, take us there. But if you're lying boy, you're gonna regret opening your eyes again today." He looks at Ellie, "Get some sleep, we leave in the mornin'."

The next day I awake to my body shaking. I feel two hands against my thick jacket. I open my eyes to see Ellie's face lightly brightened by the morning sun. I look at my watch, 6:03 AM. I follow her outside where we meet Joel waiting for us, impatiently.

"What took so long?" he asks Ellie.

"He looked really relaxed asleep, I didn't want to wake him." I can tell she was trying to talk somewhat silently so that I didn't hear.

"Well let's get a move on, we're wasting daylight." Joel gestures for me to lead the way.

I walk ahead of the two in the direction of the museum, followed closely by Ellie, then Joel. We've been walking for about an hour now, the sun hidden behind clouds making the air misty with snow. Despite being layers thick, my jackets fails to keep me from shivering. The same goes for Ellie.

"How much farther is this place?" she asks.

"We're almost there," I reply, "Just a few more—" We all stop when that all too familiar sound echoes from around the corner of a building, the direction of the supermarket.

"You hear that?" Ellie asks. Joel runs ahead and we follow him. We do as he does as he kneels down by the railing of the highway we are on. The supermarket is below us. We all peek our heads over to see. "Holy fuck," Ellie says, and we all were thinking it. The whole front entrance is crawling with clickers.

"That's the place," I tell them.

"How are we gonna get in there now?" Joel asks.

"There's another entrance around the back. This way." I start to lead the way down the entrance of the highway when I'm stopped by Joel.

"Hold on here just a minute."

"What is it?" Ellie asks him.

"That place has more clickers than I can count. If we go in there, there's a very well chance we could die. I'm not going to risk everything on a few days of food."

"We don't have much choice Joel, we're starving." Her gaze fixes on me for a brief second, long enough for me to feel every word she just said. I can tell that they're really depending on me. "Even if it's just a few days, it'll be worth it."

Joel looks at me, obviously contemplating his decision. His face is stern, however when he looks at Ellie, his expression changes completely. It's one of compassion.

"Alright," he says, "If you're lying to me, boy—"

"I'm not."

He eyes me down one last time. "Alright. Lead the way."

We quickly descend the road until we get to the parking lot. The wind picks up dramatically out of nowhere. It's so loud that I can't even hear my the snow crunching under my feet. Chances are the clickers can't either. It'd be smart to use this to our advantage, but we'd still have to be careful. One false move, and those things will rip us to pieces. We slowly make our way to a rusted car.

"Alright Joel," Ellie says, competing with the volume of the wind, "What's the plan?"

Joel looks over the hood of the car for a second. "The snow's getting blown about the place. I can't see a thing out there."

"Maybe we can use that." I say.

"Use what?" he asks me.

"Listen, the sound of this blizzard is masking our footsteps. The building is straight ahead. If we move quick enough, we can make it past them without them even noticing."

Ellie and Joel exchange looks. "Smart boy." he says, almost smiling. Almost. "Okay, stay close, and keep your head down."

We both follow Joel closely. I'm surprised that a man his age can move so quickly, especially in a crouched position. It seems that Ellie has no problem overtaking me. She moves past my right with her arms in front her face trying to block some of the snow.

I see a figure moving towards Ellie. It's a clicker. I wait a second to see if she sees it too. She doesn't. I quickly grab her arm and pull her towards me. I cup my hand over her mouth, but only after she gets out a silent swear. We fall over, I'm on my back and she lies over me, both of us facing up. The next few seconds of suspense seem to go on forever. The tall figure steps right next to my face and stops, as if it hears us, then it moves away. Thank God. It is only then that I notice how close Ellie's face is to mine. She's breathing quickly. So am I.

Something grabs my arm and pulls us up. "I said stay close," Joel's face scowls in annoyance.

We arrive to the back door entrance. It is covered in snow, just about to freeze over.

"Can you get it open?" Ellie asks Joel.

He grabs the door handles and pulls. The two-inch high snow is jamming it closed.

"Dammit. It's stuck."

I look around, and spot a broken window to our right. "There." I trudge over and start to scale the wall when Ellie grabs my leg.

"Wait, look." She points. A green-brown gas emits from the window.

"What the hell is that?" I ask. I take a step closer.

"Don't go near it. It's spores." Joel says. "Somethings been dead in there for a while." He reaches in his backpack and pulls out a gas mask. He looks at Ellie after he fastens his. She does the same, as though she had forgotten. "Put yours on," he says to me.

"I don't have one."

"You don't have one?" He lets out a sigh and digs through his backpack again. "Here. Now hurry up, we ain't got much time." He hands me an old mask that looks like it's been around since civilization.

I awkwardly hold it to my face, "How do you—"

"Let me help," Ellie offers. She places it over my head and tightens the straps. "Too tight?"

"I could have done it myself," I say as I adjust the straps from squeezing my skull.

"Let's go," Joel says. We follow him through the window. The back room of the store is clouded with a brown smog. I can barely see two feet ahead of me. It's warmer in here, probably because of the spores. "You know the drill," Joel says without turning around.

She turns to me, "Stay down and keep your head down."

Joel gestures me to take the lead. I walk ahead of them, trying to navigate through the the thick smog.

"I don't hear any clickers," Ellie says.

"Yeah, let's hurry up before our luck runs out," Joel replies.

Our footsteps echo through the empty isles. Empty boxes and food containers scatter the floor.

"This place is empty. You had better not been lying us boy or—"

"It's over here," I say. I turn down a hall behind a cash register. I've been down this hall so many times it feels like home when I slide my fingers along the walls. I feel a soft, bumpy, hairy surface along the wall on my left hand. I look there, and then immediately wish I hadn't.

"Oh fuck," Ellie says. "I guess that's what was causing the spores."

A body is on the ground. It's legs are bent upwards and it leans against the wall. It looks like it was male, except he's covered in a green, web-like, mossy, fungus. His face, at least where it should be, is totally replaced by the fungus. The disgusting plant disease starts in his mouth, then protrudes outwards around his body from there. His eye sockets house flowers sprouting out of them. I come close to vomiting my organs out, yet I can't look away. If this were a completely different circumstance, and time period, I would pick them for Lucy. She likes daisies. Liked daisies.

I feel Ellie's hand on my shoulder, "It helps if you don't stare." she says sympathetically.

"Come on," Joel says.

"Through here," I look at it once more before I pull my eyes off the sight.

We enter another hallway. The air is cleaner here, outside can be seen clearer through the windows.

"There aren't any spores in here," Joel says as he takes his mask off. Ellie does the same and takes a breath. "Give me that one back," he says to me. I remove mine and give it to him. The air in here is stale. It wreaks of dead, rotting flesh.

"Through this door," I say. It opens with a long creak. I open it all the way. The room is empty.


	6. Chapter Six

**Sorry for the super short chapter but I wanted to finally upload something. School is demanding most of my time, so I didn't get much time to write. Enjoy and comment!**

"Through this door," Ethan opens it slowly. It creaks loudly, as though waking from its sleep. He suddenly stops with the door barely open.

"What's the matter?" I ask him. He remains frozen.

"No, no, no, no," Joel bursts the door open. The room is baren, littered only with trash and plastic wrappers. Joel desperetely looks around for anything, but the room is completely empty. Only a lone window opposite the wall with the door reveals some sunlight and clickers walking around aimlessly in the snow.

Joel suddenly pulls his pistol from its holster and points it at Ethan. Ethan immedietely raises his arms.

"What are you—" Ethan doesn't finish his sentence.

"Give me one goddamm reason I shouldn't put a bullet in your head!"

"Wait, Joel, hold on!" I try to calm him down. He ignores me.

Ethan desperately tries to think of something so say. He glances over at me, just before he moves his left hand, the one Joel can't see, slowly behind his back. He's going for a gun. I start to move my hand for mine when— I feel an excruciating pain in my right leg, which was closest to the window. Glass shatters and the loud wind blows snow inside, masking my cry of pain. A burning sensation grows worse in my thigh. Like lighting a match on the inside of my leg with a perpetual, white flame. A gunshot. I have always wondered what it felt like; now I know. From the wound down, my right leg has no feeling. It hurts, so much.

"Ellie!" Joel yells. I fall to the ground, on the brink of tears. The horrible screeches of clickers get louder. They're coming, fast.

Joel effortlessly picks me up and carries me out the room. There isn't any time to put on gas masks so he jumps out of a window in the opposite direction of the spores. With all of the bouncing around, my leg constantly hits against his arm causing me to go near the edge of blacking out from the sheer intensity of the pain. I clench onto his jacket, trying to overcome it. I bury my face in his chest and scream, but that doesn't help it. Once outside in the snow, I hear more gunshots from behind us.

"You had a gun?!" I hear Joel ask Ethan.

"Sorry," he replies. Ethan empties his clip onto the creatures behind us. We go back onto the snow-covered highway. We run, and run, and run until the sounds of the clickers screaming behind us fades, but the pain is just too much. I pass out in Joel's arms.

I hear his voice, "Ellie! Ellie, no! Sara—"

It's cold. I'm wearing Joel's jacket, I recognize the smell. The gunshot wound in my leg is mostly numb with some stinging, but not much, reminding me of the events from before. I can see that I'm in the back seat of an old bus. The cushion on each seat has either rotted away or have been stolen, leaving only the freezing metal. Most of the windows are still in tact, providing some shelter from the cold outside.

I lean up against the back of he bus and look at my watch, 11:33 AM. I've been out for four hours?!

I move to a sitting position and take a deep breath as I slowly push myself onto my feet. At first I stumble a little so I use the chair to keep myself upright. In the seat in front of the one I was laying on, to the left, I see Joel's backpack. I open it and see his spare gas mask. I look at it closer and see a crack on the right eye glass. It's broken. Judging by the way it looks, it's been broken for a while. My mask is in my backpack, even though I don't even need it, and that isn't the mask that Joel uses. Which means— oh God. Ethan.

Joel catches me off guard and I jump, "Hey," He gets up from laying down in the seat in front of mine, "How're you feelin'?"

From how he looks I can tell that he just woke up. "I think my leg is okay. The wound still hurts like a bitch though." I try to stay calm, as to not to alert him of anything. If Joel were to find out about Ethan, he would kill him for sure.

"Can you walk?"

I try to move forward on my own, but stumble down. "Easy," Joel says helping me stand. I try again and manage to move a few steps on my own.

"I can walk, but not much anything else." I look around the bus, "Where's Ethan?"

Joel leans over the chair to take a water bottle out of his open backpack. His expression changes. "He helped me with your leg, then he left."

"He just left?" I didn't even get to say goodbye.

"Yeah." Joel stares at the ground while gripping he tops of the chairs on either side of him. I honestly would not expect this type of reaction from him. He looks up at me with a determined look on his face, "Come on." He turns around and starts toward the exit.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"Find out who shot you."


End file.
